Ballroom of Murders
Dance! Emilia looked her opponent up and down, left and right...but couldn't find anything distinctive about the alluring male voice that greeted her. And while she was distracted in this task, the man raised an eyebrow - almost non-existent - and asked, "You checking me out?" As his deep voice snapped Emilia out of her observatory state, she looked upon his barely visible face. "Hmm...you have an attractive voice for sure. But that goddamned cloak of yours makes it difficult to see your face and body! Strip for me, why don't you?" Emilia boldly flirted with the man in front of her, causing him to be confused, Randall's jaw to drop, and everyone else to be flabbergasted due to the previous seriousness of the situation. "Excuse me?" The man asked in response, to which Emilia sighed outwardly. "You guys are so booooring. I called you out here because I obviously want a date!" The man once again, somewhat stunned, looked towards his potential…"date" with some curiosity. "May I ask the reason for why you would approach a Dark Guild to ask for a...date?" Emilia smirked in response, "Oh but haven't you heard? The ladies like the bad boys!" Emilia roared with laughter, and the rest of her allies simply sighed to her response. "Is...she...sane?" Carolyn asked Randall, who responded quite meekly. "She...isn't really, but is at the same time." Carolyn was rather shocked at her idol being placed in such...unusual scrutiny. But she looked onwards, as suddenly the situation became much more serious. "Wait...why do I feel such a...dense aura…" Carolyn asked, and Randall smirked. "Stay behind me young lady, Emilia hates holding back more than anything." Carolyn did as the man asked. She knew...today's battle was not going to be a simple one. Salsa: Blossoming of Fatal Romance! "Heh. If you're trying to psychologically disorient me...it won't work." The man responded back to him, looking at Emilia with a strangely strong glance. "Ooooh, lovely! You have such perfect eyes, y'know!" Emilia thoroughly doted on him, and then with an immediate change of attitude, released a small, dense aura surrounding herself. "Now I'm sorry to break this act...but you've got me to deal with…Nosferatu the Magic Slayer." The man, now classified as Nosferatu, chuckled inwardly. "So you know of me...but of course, Emilia the Azure Phoenix." Releasing his own aura to parallel his enemy, he waited patiently for his opponent to make the first move. "It appears it's my turn!" The white-haired Guild Ace roared , lifting the balls of her feet and making a swift dash towards Nosferatu. Within that instant, she also appeared to draw her sword without any warning, and attempted to cut Nosferatu in half with a simple horizontal slash, obviously packed with significant might. Nosferatu, in response, jumped upward with a surprising speed as soon as Emilia placed her palm on her sword. He evaded the assault narrowly as his feet were only an inch above the blade that nearly bisected him, prior to sending his body weight downwards onto the sword, causing it to crash onto the ground. "My, it appears I expected a bit too much from you." Nosferatu taunted, and Emilia smirked in response. "You overestimate yourself." In nothing but a moment, a powerful aura of blue flames enveloped her sword and attempted to devour Nosferatu, forcing him to leap backwards. "Tch." He moaned internally, evading the dancing flames with simple maneuvering of his feet to the left, center and right. Using these three spaces as his guide, he avoided the majority of the flames prior to finally retaliating. "Endless Ashes." He muttered briefly, before his eyes transfigured into a grey color, without any life in them whatsoever. Almost immediately afterward, a wall of ashes appeared to try and apprehend the flames. The resulting clash formed a massive explosion, enough to tower over the building that the duo were fighting near. "Heh, looks like our magical prowess is relatively equal." Nosferatu commented, and Emilia laughed in response. "Your observations really do need some work!" Emilia dashed forward this time once again, attempting to lunge Nosferatu. The man, preparing for the attack, was about to side-step to the right when, suddenly, Emilia disappeared from sight. "What?" The Dark Mage contemplated briefly, before noticing Emilia's presence behind him. "Oh, so that's it?" In that instant, while Emilia attempted to stab Nosferatu with a flurry of fencing strikes, Nosferatu instantly turned around and parried the majority of them with his bare hands. The density provided by his cloak proved enough to not allow his hands to be injured in any significant way. And so, the dance continued. Majestically, and without any interruptions. The duo clashed their ideals towards each other. On the one hand, the Azure Phoenix wants the world to shine brightly, and on the other hand, there was the Magic Slayer...and all he wants is to see something in the world that surprises him. This manifested in a flurry of sword strikes, and an equivalent number of backhands to retaliate. Without any interruption, their strikes constantly parried one another. Their speed was phenomenal, and beyond that, their ability to react to one another's assaults so meticulously was something else in their entirety. "You're quite skilled." Nosferatu commented, as he shrugged away an attack towards his shoulder using his right arm, prior to using his left in an attempt to stab Emilia with a chop. "Oh no you don't!" Emilia quickly retaliated with an outstretched hand. While the collision between the two strikes caused a brief shockwave, it also caused injury on Emilia's hand. "Tch, this isn't really getting anywhere, is it?" She noticed. Nosferatu slyly commented: "Maybe because you suck." "You little..." Tap Dance of the Blades "Well...now that we've seen that little spectacle, we should probably get going." Almos approached Garrett, who grudgingly nodded - he enjoyed watching Emilia battle. The duo leaped from the bushy forests and approached the window at the east of the building. The two males, well versed in their respective combat forms, looked upon the reinforced steel building with a tad bit of annoyance. "Reinforced steel..." Almos thought, and placed his fingers on his chin. "How constraining..." He voiced, and Garrett simply smirked. "You think this is constraining? You're rather weak, aren't ya'?" Garrett told Almos, and the brown-haired man grunted in response. "Would you mind not being so demeaning?" Almos responded, causing Garrett to chuckle slightly. "Now, lemme handle this." He told him, as Almos took a step back intuitively. Garrett was glad he had some common sense, and braced himself. Drawing his blade, Garrett used a swift slash to cut through the steel at a remarkable pace, leaving it dropping on the floor with a powerful sound echoing in Almos' ears. The guards picked up their weapons upon hearing the deafening cry of the alarm, and moved forward at an extraordinarily fast pace. Weapons in hand, the soldiers cried out their Guild's name: "SLITHERING SERPENT, FOR VICTORY!!!" Almos sighed in response to their cries, and drew upon his Sword Cutlass. "Time for some idiots to shut up!" He exclaimed, before moving swiftly to the battlefield. With a single roll forward, Almos aimed his gun above him while he was on his knees. He shot one soldier in the head, the other in the heart, and the other in the abdomen - all of them fell onto their knees. "Well, that was eas -!?" Almos was almost cut in half through a sword that was aimed right behind him, until another sword pierced through the soldier's stomach, leaving the blood flowing out of the stomach like a fountain. "Jeez, don't leave yourself open like that." Garrett groaned, before stiffening up slightly. The soldiers had moved backwards, but for what? It was then that Garrett noticed it - a heinous presence. "Show yourself, idiot." Garrett cursed, to which the presence revealed himself. The man was laughing, as if this were some comedy. He did appear to be somewhat intimidating: a scowling face, delinquent clothing, fists folded up. But overall, he seemed like another idiot to Garrett. "The name's Sebastian. Now...bring it!" Ballet of the Icy Corpse "I'm pretty sure you guys are as crazy as we are." Gray told Norma, as the both of them appeared on the west of the building. Already destroyed, five appeared before the duo. Immediately placing himself into a stance of combat, Gray was about to charge an Ice-Make spell prior to Norma intervening. "Get out of the way, idiots!" Norma shouted, smashing the heads of two Centaurs together and dissipating them into magical energy as she ran into the building. "Fast..." Gray was left in awe for a moment as the three Centaurs were upon him. "Ice Impact!" An intricately designed hammer of ice was forged above the position of the four combatants. Gray, quickly propelling himself forward, narrowly avoided his own attack as the three Centaurs were brutally attacked, also dissipating into magical energy. "Hey, Norma, wait up!" The young man exclaimed as he began to dash behind the zombified woman. As he did so, there was a sudden interruption; the duo were surrounded by a circle of Centaurs, while another human appeared with a young, demonic-looking girl. "Are these weaklings our opponents?" She taunted, poking her tongue at Norma. "Oi, girl..." Norma's grin turned into a solemn expression, leaving Gray to realize the severity of the situation. "Norma...could...-!?" Gray couldn't complete his sentence as Norma and the young girl clashed fists within an instant, causing both combatants to be pushed back into the nearby wall. "Ah my, a catfight has occurred." The other man spoke, as Gray kept his eyes pierced on both this man and his comrade. "This...isn't going to be good." He thought, as magical energy was focused near his waist. "Let's go, old man!" Gray shouted to taunt the man. "Why, let's. En Garde!" The man responded eloquently, sending his Centaurs in as his army. Waltz of Darkness "We're late!" Artemis roared as he smashed through the glass within an instant, Raziel close behind on all four of his legs. "You do realize that's because we had to go the furthest distance, right?" Raziel taunted the young man, beginning to speed up as the building proceeded to get darker as he moved forward. "Shut it! And why are you going ahead -!?" Artemis shouted before realizing why Raziel had gone ahead, suddenly stopping in his tracks and leaving a puff of dust behind him from his previous movement speed. "Hehehe, you're the kiddo our Master's interested in..." An ominous, feminine voice said as shadows reached out in an attempt to punch Artemis. "Tch!" Artemis, in the darkness, took a direct hit, with his body flying off the ground and back smashing to the wall, echoing a powerful sound that stirred Raziel before Artemis slid to the ground. "I know this magical power..." Artemis stood up with a bit of struggle, smirking as he did so. "You're the old woman that barely won against Little Luna!" "When did Little Luna become a thing...?" Raziel said to himself as his canine senses suddenly piqued, with his tail suddenly shimmering silver as he parried against a dark sword of some kind, before rotating his entire body in order to push his opponent back. "You're a kid...what are you doing here?!" Raziel asked, as his opponent previously cloaked in shadows became visible. With hair shining white, the young man, previously identified as Lennart, responded. "A dog shouldn't be telling me that!!" "Old woman...you and that girlfriend of yours are exactly the same!" The woman's voice grew, sending multiple shadow arms towards Artemis' location, specifically, his torso. "Huǒ!" Artemis shouted as he placed his palms on top of one another. Writing suddenly appeared within the midst of this space, exploding into a ball of flames which Artemis injected his magical power into. In that very moment, he opened his palms and sent out a stream of flames powerful enough to break through the shadow arms and also shatter the Shadow Field spell, revealing the figure once identified as Ariel Vardah. "Humiliation for a second time..." Ariel's tone grew darker, "I won't allow it!" Category:Chapters Category:Fairy Tail: Flocking Home